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Tomatoes on Toast

Fried tomatoes stuffed with ham and herbs served on buttered toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Tomatoes on Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Preheat oil for frying.

  2. Cut the tops off the tomatoes and remove some seeds.

  3. Mix parsley, sweet herbs, grated ham, and butter with the raw egg.

  4. Fill the tomato cavities with the mixture.

Fry and serve

  1. Dip the filled tomatoes into the light batter.

  2. Fry the tomatoes quickly until golden brown.

  3. Serve on well-buttered squares of toast.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Butter + hamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the main body and moist, soft filling base for the dish.
Raw egg
Binds the parsley, herbs, ham and butter into a filling that holds together.
Light batter
Forms a thin coating that crisps and browns in the hot oil.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the filling and the buttered toast.
Grated ham
Adds savoury, salty flavour to the filling.

The step that matters

Fry the tomatoes quickly until golden brown. Tomatoes hold a lot of water, so long frying can turn the filling soggy and let the egg overcook. A short fry in hot oil sets the batter quickly while the inside stays moist.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, parsley, ham, egg, pepper):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, parsley, ham, egg, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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